If European Commission (EC) President Jose Manuel Barroso will evaluate the efforts of the U.S. against the complex problems arising from climate change, surely it will get a failing grade.
Barroso is disappointed to President George W. Bush’s no direct policies on solving the crises brought by climate change. He anticipates that whoever replaces the incumbent American president in 2009, he or she will be a better planner in responding to the environmental problem.
The EC President remarked during the seminar in Oslo that the three contending American presidentiables have promising platforms on climate change and foresees to see those action plans be implemented.
Barroso said trends are showing a favorable sign that sooner there will be a clear-cut steps in combating climate change coming from a superpower nation like the U.S. But he added that this will only be a tip of the iceberg solution and more reinforcements have yet to take place in recognizing the sincerity of the platforms.
Certainly, the Bush administration is more inclined to extinguish terrorism around the globe. But it fails to acknowledge the real issues of environmental degradation that serves as “terror acts in silence” victimizing multitudes as disasters strike when you least expect them.
With the presence of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, anyone of them who will continue the legacy of U.S. presidency in January 2009, may somehow be a solution to the climate change struggle. All of them are in favor to set caps in solving the thickening emissions of greenhouse gases brought by U.S. households and industries. This was a shortcoming in the part of the Bush administration despite pressures from its allies.
Perhaps, next year the U.S. will be an active participant of the UN’s Kyoto Protocol and join Australia and other member states in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least five percent below 1990 levels.
Through this, it will temper down the temperature and reduce the year-round cases of floods, droughts and related risks and dangers.
Although it is not yet too late for President Bush to take initiatives on climate change, he needs to reconsider taking an active stance in combating the sources of rising temperatures.
Disasters are like terrorists who take lives and unknowingly have the same effects of abandoning families and getting into all sorts of dangers and uncertainties to the families of many citizens in all parts of the world.